A Mile In Your Shoes
by Kyo-chan
Summary: After passing the State Alchemy Exam, Al is shown to the dorm, and finds something he hadn’t expected.


Alphonse shuffled quietly behind Colonel Hawkeye, stifling a yawn behind his hand. As they walked, his tired gaze shifted along the hallways lined with doors, each marked with a number, nameplates near the doorframe to identify the soldiers that occupied each dorm room. The blonde teen had come to recognize the faint, almost hollow, sensation that marked something that should have been familiar to him, but had vanished along with his memories. He'd been here before, probably with Edward, and even though he felt the exhaustion of the last few days in every bone, every muscle of his body, he couldn't help a slight rush of happiness. That delight distracted him momentarily, almost causing him to crash into Hawkeye, who'd finally come to a stop outside a door. She raised an eyebrow, provoking a sheepishly apologetic grin from the boy, who ran a hand through his hair as he looked up at her.

"This is where you will be staying while you serve here," she told him, pulling a pair of keys from her pocket. "The General would like to see you tomorrow afternoon once you've rested."

"Mm!" Al assented, giving a pleasant salute before taking the offered keys. As the woman stood back so he could himself in, he caught sight of a nameplate already in one of the two slots near the door, and for a moment he wondered what kind of person he would be sharing the room with. Until he got a good look at it.

Major E. Elric.

The boy's breath caught in his throat, gripping the keys so hard the teeth bit into his palm. When he could finally tear his eyes away, he brought them to Hawkeye, and whatever she saw in them made her steady expression falter a little. "This was…my…?" he whispered.

"General Mustang likes to ensure productivity from those in his unit. He thought perhaps this room would be helpful to you since no one has taken it yet," she explained, and even with her no-nonsense tone, her eyes were warm. Even she didn't expect the eager pair of arms found suddenly wrapped around her.

"Thank you!" Al breathed, practically quivering with excitement. "And I'll thank General Mustang tomorrow!" He pulled back as quickly as he'd attached, once more giving a sheepish smile and a salute, as if trying to pretend he hadn't just hugged his superior officer. He turned to push the key into the lock, hands shaking, the Colonel forgotten in his haste to get inside the living space that had belonged to his brother. Who knew what he'd find in here! And even if he found nothing material, the very idea that Ed had spent time here, had slept here, meant the world to him anyway. He quickly slipped within once the locked clicked open, moving his pack off of his shoulders to drop it to the floor and shut the door behind him. "Brother, I'm home," he whispered with a smile on his face, yearning to hear an answer, but knowing he wouldn't.

Still, as he bent to unfasten his boots, he blew his hair out of his dark amber eyes (getting longer, he'd need to tie it back soon) so that he could look around the simple room, taking it all in. The sparsely furnished dorm held a treasure trove of items that, until now, Al hadn't known existed. He nearly tripped over his own feet to get to the work table set up along one wall, his tired body trying to remind him that he should be resting, but his heart unwilling to cooperate as his hands fell upon a small stack of worn journals and copies of military reports. Fumbling for a chair, he sank into it, pulling it all within his reach, starting to flip pages, fluttery feeling in his chest, fingertips running over the impressions of Ed's handwriting in the paper. In spite of the slightly sloppy script, beautifully drawn arrays in different sizes and degrees of intricacy also graced the pages, Al pleased when he could identify a lot of the elements, the way they'd learned to do as children. He clutched one of the worn, leather bound books to his chest, practically bounding out of the chair to see what else he would find.

Two beds stood on the far side of the room, and tucked behind the headboard, Al caught a glimpse of the battered suitcase that he and Ed would take turns carrying for their mother when they would go on little train trips outside of Risembool, a wistful smile lighting his face. This memory, he could have…earned before the bad things happened and with him even when the most recent years were not. He tugged open the closet door, immediately greeted by something crimson that made his heart speed up again. Setting the book on the closest bed, he reached out, pulling a long red coat into view. He handled it carefully, the fabric under his fingers sturdy but soft, a flamel embroidered onto the back of it with care and detail. A flash of recent memory…standing stubbornly before Brigadier-General Mustang, the man casually holding up a photo of an Ed at least two or three years older than he remembered…standing next to the suit of armour that had collected dust in their basement once upon a time. He'd been told by those he encountered that he had lived with no body inside that armour for four years, but he remembered none of that. Yes… Al smiled serenely to himself. In the picture, Ed had been wearing this very same coat.

Clinging to it in much the same way he had the book, Al took a few shaky steps back until the side of the bed connected with the backs of his knees, and he sank bonelessly to the mattress. His nose buried into the nape of the coat breathing in the scent of their mother's soap, bringing to mind many childhood baths that ended with more water on the floor than in the tub. Trisha had always tolerated it, letting them splash around and occasionally striking with the washcloth until they were both clean. Biting his lip sharply, Al fiercely held back the lump in his throat as he murmured Ed's name, flicking his wrists to make the coat flare out and settle over his shoulders, pulling it tightly around him. He lay to the side as his weary body demanded, curling up into the warmth of Ed's coat and the presence it carried with it, the closest thing he could get to feeling the other's arms protectively around him. /_I made it, Edward…I'm here, just like you were, going to do whatever it takes to bring you home and make it right, just like you did for me. I promise._/ The feel of something heavy against his left leg gave him pause, and he felt around, only to discover that Ed's red coat was every bit as functional as it was flashy, with plenty of pockets. He finally found the right one, his hand closing around something cold and round, surface embossed and a chain catching delicately around his fingers. He knew what it was before he even pulled it out, because he'd just received one that very day.

This time when Al bit his lip, it didn't stop a trail of hot tears from running down his face. Pulling the State Alchemist watch into his view, he rubbed his thumb over the design on the front, unable to help a pang of loneliness. Wherever Edward was, he had left everything behind, and surely if Al could feel just as lonely now surrounded by most of his brother's things, then he couldn't imagine how lonely Ed might be. The latch gave a tiny click when he pressed into it, the watch popping open to unleash the soft tick-tick of the second hand moving over the plain white face. And…etched into the other side…

_Don't forget__…_

Al's shoulders shook, tears chasing each other faster down his face, blurring the words, the hands and numbers until he snapped it shut again, holding it to his chest. That day…the last day he could remember before waking up at the Rockbell house, the day when his and Edward's life had changed irreversibly, drastically. The transmutation gone wrong, sacrifices made in vain, Al's mind now a frustrating void where memories should have been, abruptly cut off on that day. Ed had been so sure, so confident that the younger boy had so little room to doubt that he'd disregarded the nagging worry that something would go wrong. Those confident features, the warm golden eyes so much like his own, he longed to see them with an ache so hard that all he could do was lay there and let the tears keep falling. _"Don't be such a crybaby, Al! It's gonna be a'right!"_ Ed's young voice rang in his mind, something he heard many times and had always believed in with all his being. Don't be such a crybaby… tonight, Al would let himself, but tomorrow…

Tomorrow, he would wake to a new day and begin. He'd would tie his hair back and slip this Ed's coat onto his slender frame, tuck the journals into his pockets and step out. His journey would begin here in Central and move forward on a path already taken so he could relive the memories he didn't have, walk in Ed's footsteps. And if that didn't work, he'd keep going, search the entire world for what he was missing so that he could bring it home where everything else waited. Amber eyes began to flutter closed, and Al saw the image of the photograph in the resulting darkness. Draped in the coat he'd wrapped himself in, Ed grinned proudly… Al hoped that when he found Ed (no way he would ever say 'if'), he would see that smile directed at him. Then he would know that everything would be all right.


End file.
